It finally happened! In year 21 of the two of us making and releasing music, the year our own record label became old enough to drink, Carl is releasing his first ever solo lp!!

Tomorrow is a culmination of songs he recorded after moving into a new home in early 2011. The change in atmosphere brought about a relaxed and playful side to Carl’s compositions and cued an even more calm side of him. The music on Tomorrow is a showcase of Carl’s ability to capture both the dawning of the morning sun and a beautiful ride on country roads. Uplifting and full of hope, this record is full of a new found confidence. Have no fear – his gorgeous and immediately recognizable tone is still present and on full display! But he adds some new dimensions to recording in pieces like “Hidden” which are looping electronics and quasi industrial percussion.

This release, Blue Flea 21, is available on limited cd – housed in a lovely hand letter press sleeve by Interrobang Press, or on double lp – with one record being orange and one being black. Two thick slabs of vinyl in a heavy gatefold sleeve! Either format comes with a download for an additional 45 minutes of music, so all together you get 2 hours of Carl’s new recordings!!!

To top it all off, he has been invited to play at Substrata in Seattle in July of this year. His first ever solo show, which will take place in a completely ambient setting.

Details of both the release and the solo performance are included below.

https://windyandcarl.bandcamp.com/album/tomorrow-full-length-release

An all instrumental offering from Carl Hultgren (one half of Windy & Carl) is set for release on 20th MAY 2014. A Limited Edition Double LP of 500 copies (one album on ORANGE VINYL, the other on BLACK VINYL) will include a DOWNLOAD CODE of the complete album, along with 6 ADDITIONAL BONUS SONGS recorded during the same sessions. WITH THE ADDITION OF THESE EXTRA SONGS, IT BRINGS THE RUNNING TIME OF THIS AT JUST UNDER 2 HOURS LONG *** THESE DOWNLOAD ONLY BONUS SONGS ARE AVAILABLE ONLY WITH THE PHYSICAL VINYL OR CD PURCHASE.

2014 and another year has begun.
we’ve done a lot in the past few years, and we’re proud of the fact that we just celebrated 20 years of making music and releasing records!
who knew all those years ago that we would still be up to our old antics – hand painted covers, limited color vinyl, mailing them all out ourselves…….

well, it’s still making us happy, so why quit now!

here is EXACTLY what we’ve been up to in the last few years (i’m really not a computer person – this website stuff is not where my head is at or where my interests lie, and yet it is necessary to keep everyone else in the loop – please excuse my lack of new info up to now) – you’ll be pleased with all we’ve done and all the new music you can listen to!

the future of 2014 holds carl’s new solo record. in year 21 of us making music, he will finally be self releasing his solo lp. it will be blue flea #21 (fitting for the 21st year of our music) and will be a double lp in a gatefold sleeve, with a download code. separately there will also be a tiny run of cds made, for those of you who still dig cds. i dont know the title, or the song names (i’m in charge of helping with art and the one sheet – everything else is up to carl) but i have been listening to the music for over a year and i can assure you it is nothing less than stunning. it certainly sounds like carl’s guitar, and it has some of the feel of a w&c record, but carl on his own has a unique sound – and i love it. you will too. it should be out in late march!

right now as we speak it is feb 3rd, 2014, and we have been mailing out copies of our very special 20th anniversary 45. limited to 400 copies, we put this record out with a twist. the first 100 copies are on orange vinyl, and the artwork comes flat, as it is suitable for framing. the art is also numbered and signed. the remaining 300 copies are on red vinyl with handpainted sleeves that are folded and not numbered or signed. i have spent the last 3 months painting covers – a fulfilling winter time project for all of these below freezing days that we have been stuck inside. it’s been slow painting them all – i had imagined i could get 20 or so done each night, but on a good night i only do 8 of them (very labor intensive) and of course the holidays reared their ugly heads in the midst of my work, so i’m still painting. however, initial orders have been sent, and now i can keep up with the orders as they come in without feeling overwhelmed. the art has been slow to create, the test pressings took longer than we thought, and so did the actual pressing of the record. BUT we went with archer record pressing here in detroit, and mike had a huge order for the new moodyman lp so we understood why there was extra time in pressing – we’d rather have mike stay in business so it’s great that he had such a busy christmas pressing season.

you can listen here

and you can buy a copy here
http://windyandcarl.bandcamp.com/album/i-walked-alone-at-night-single

(there are also many other w&c releases you can purchase digitally or physically through the bandcamp site – we’ve been adding them in the last few months)

in december of 2013 we had part 2 of the anniversary series come out (there are 3 parts) as a 45 on the great pop supplement out of the uk. dominic martin has been a friend for 18 years and in 1995 had released our emerald 7″ on the label he ran then (enraptured). we’ve stayed in touch all these years, and he was so excited when we told him about the records we had lined up that he offered to release one on the great pop supplement. the songs are caliope and carnivale, and they are pressed on a lovely lemon yellow vinyl in a gorgeous die cut sleeve. dom did all the design work himself, and it came out much to our liking. the pressing of 500 copies is already sold out – they went lickety split. an added bonus to this release is that seth trexlor (a well known dance dj) picked up a copy at a record store in london because he liked the cover art, played it, and liked it so much he used the song carnivale as the lead track on a new mixmag magazine cd release! this is a very fun experience for us, especially as this song is a great departure from the music we usually create – i say it is my astrud gilberto tribute, as i sing in a fashion somewhat like she does, and the music is rhythmic bells and tamborine with a wash of guitar at the end. a new direction for us – one we hope to do more exploring with.

we also gave a new composition called godzilla of snow to fred thomas for his life like tapes series. we were paired up with dean from no age – each of us having one side of a tape, and the tapes were sold along with collage art that fred made. he had a one month art curation in ann arbor that was well attended and received great reviews, and we are glad he asked us to be a part of the exhibit. godzilla of snow is a long, slowly unfolding keyboard and guitar piece – a smouldering, coming up from below kind of brain melting piece, perfect for the weather we have been having here in michigan this winter.

for record store day in april of 2013, we released part one of the 20th anniversary series – a live cassette of a show from 2009 in tucson, arizona from the solar culture gallery. 2009 was the last major tour we did in the usa, and more than likely will be our last ever tour as we have found it too difficult to leave our record store and our dogs to go away and be on the road. we decided the performance in tucson was really a perfect representation of what our live shows can be – intimate, intricate, layered loveliness. the tape was limited to 150 copies, once again with hand painted and numbered covers. i obviously enjoy spending my free time making art!!

we said in 2012 that we were retiring from live preformance all together, and we played a show in seattle at the decibel festival that was perfect – a gorgeous theatre, a great soundsystem, beautiful well working guitars and amps to use, and an audience who listened intently and we loved playing for them. it was an absolutely amazing end to years of the torture that is live performace to me – we so rarely get to the pinnacle of sound and energy that we know we can achieve, and it has become increasingly difficult to play to people who don’t really listen, are just wanting to drink beer, or only came to see another band on the bill. so we decided seattle would be the last show ever. and my god did it feel incredible. a really freeing experience.

however, we did say yes to sharing the bill with will oldham in detroit in the summer of 2013. we said yes for us, we said yes because we really like will oldham and he and emmett kelly had very specially asked for us to play. we knew no one in detroit would listen – we knew everyone (well, mostly everyone) was only coming to see will, and they talked through the whole performance, they were not listening, and we simply palyed for ourselves. well, and for emmett – who, in 1997, was in high school in the los angeles area, and had tired to use a fake i.d. to get into spaceland to see us and the silver apples, and the door man would not let him in. he’d been waiting all these years to see us, and he told ua a beautiful story about how our music opened up doors for him in his listening habits and playing styles. that is what makes all this worthwhile for us – knowing we have made a difference in the lives of people, esp people whose own musical creations we really enjoy. we are so lucky to have our place in this world.

lastly, i think is the record we released for record store day in april of 2012. a self titled release on blue flea (#19) it was limited to 500 copies, with 250 on blue and 250 on green. 45 minutes of music, brand new compositions, one with wordless vocals, and several showcasing the unfolding of new ideas and directions. we have found new ways of expressing ourselves through sound in the past few years, and to move forward through sound exploration is something that makes us very happy. i mean, of course we stress and argue and worry and over mix things and rework things and realize the first version was the best one (the way we almost always seem to work) but we’re happy with the results. and glad to be creating all these years later. we’re awfully lucky. thanks for coming along for the ride!!
windy
2-3-2014
dearborn, mi

so, we have a new record coming out. it’s been 3 years, that makes it about time for a new album, right? in the slowed down world of Windy and Carl music, multiple years between releases just makes sense. so…..

life is short. sometimes things you think are gonna last forever don’t, and some things you aren’t sure about end up lasting. what have we discovered? that things are not always hard, and remembering what we really wanted and who we really are means very simple things. for me, it is that i love music to no end, and i love to hear carl play the guitar more than just about anything else in this world. i play to hear him play. it’s that simple.

together we have a world no one else really knows. we often do not even need to speak – we just know. we joke about how we share one brain. of course, that means when one of is stressed, the other cannot help but be affected. we find ways to balance this – and most of the time it really works. yeah, we have had bumps in the road, and on occasion it seems as if we may never recover from these bumps, but we do.

so now it’s three years later, three years since the last record. we are still together, and we are still very much in love. we found a way to get back to all the things that really matter, and of course, at the heart of it all, is music. making music. creating this other world.

this new record – it started in 2009 with a series of recordings carl had under taken. i had a solo record – our close friends told carl to make a solo record. he recorded, on and off, for maybe 18 months. all by himself, and amassed a wonderful inventory of tracks to work with. then valentines day 2011 was coming, and his gift to me was this cd of tracks he had done, all alone, and a lot of them new, just for me. i loved them, all of them. i played them all day every day for months. carl told me it was music just for me, and no one else would ever hear it.

you imagine your very favorite guitar player in the world making music just for you. just for you. think of how wonderful that would feel. if carl really did not want anyone else to hear it, so be it. i had new music just for me, and i was overjoyed.

i did play it for some friends, when carl was not around. they were not sure who we were listening to. they had lots of questions, and all came to the same conclusion – carl’s new works were gorgeous, and it was a shame that no one else would hear them. knowing that he might be angry that others had heard, i told him anyway. “our friends like your new work, maybe you should put it out.” and in typical, wonderful carl fashion, he asked me if i wanted to work on the tracks with him.

so – imagine – your very favorite guitar player ever says, “lets make a record together”. of course i said yes – i didn’t want anything else. it was a gift to be able to work on these tracks. it opened my mind up to different ways of thinking, and different ways of creating, and i found ways to forget how afraid i am of singing, and of what people might think of my words, and i simply sang. 4 songs with vocals, all new styles, all different from each other. i told carl he had better hurry up and get the songs out before i realized that maybe i was having a manic moment during creation and changed my mind after. i do play guitar on one song – otherwise, it’s all just carl.

he used the fender rhodes i gave him for his birthday one year, in the late 90s, and several different guitars. i can remember, in the old house (we moved in december of 2010) laying on the couch and listening to him recording the beginnings of what became the last track on this record – Fainting In The Presence Of The Lord, and knowing he was onto something really great – of hearing him come up with new ideas and sounds and absolutely loving them.

after we moved carl was on fire when it came to creating and recording – he spent the winter and early spring reading and playing guitar. it was glorious to me to come home each day after work to find him reading, and in our free time together, he played the guitar. one day in particular, we sat next to each other, and i rubbed his back, while rain gently slid down the old wavy glass casement windows, and he played for me for hours – all new ideas, all new sketches, and i wished i could stay in that moment forever.

this record was such a joy to make.

it has some very endearing moments – some vocal passages that often times in any relationship are never actually spoken. it has some very experimental elements – strange vocal effects, maybe a little borrowing from english noise pioneers……and it has a great deal of carl’s phenomenal guitar playing. it’s arranged in a way to take you somewhere – a gentle start, a thick middle, and an end that will make you see stars.

it was a joy for me to be on this record, to be able to make a new record with the man i love. to have found, that even after the darkest of times, we are still in love, we are still incapable of living without each other, we are still 2 halves of the same being. i would guess you will hear that in this record – it is certainly apparent to me.

a full-length release of two long tracks, dedicated to their dearly departed dog, Flea. This is the first in the Brainwashed Handmade series and comes in a letterpress edition, silver printing on black paper, limited to 500 copies